


Faith and Family

by ana



Category: Vorkosigan Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold
Genre: Children, Family, Friendship, Trust
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-29
Updated: 2011-05-29
Packaged: 2017-10-19 21:33:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 871
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/205444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ana/pseuds/ana
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A short piece about how I've always imagined Ivan's relationship with Ekaterin and the Vorkosigan children.  It's about other relationships as well but I'll let you discover that for yourselves...</p><p>(This is a pre Cryoburn fic)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Faith and Family

The idea of marriage, parenthood and children had taken on a different dimension when Ivan’s nephew and nieces were born. Before then, Ivan admitted, he never thought seriously about any of it, even when he had proposed to the Koudelka girls.

He only admitted this to Ekaterin, the only woman he felt he could talk to without getting laughed at or fired at first. Ekaterin didn’t assume - she listened. If she thought he was talking crap, she had a way of telling him without making him feel like an idiot.

It was Ekaterin who had suggested that Ivan may have, initially and unconsciously, sabotaged his marriage chances. He still winced when he recalled how Martya had pulled him to pieces, after he had proposed to her. They laughed about it now, well Martya laughed about it. It was a story she still loved to tell, repeatedly, to many people.

His mother had always said he missed his chance with the Koudelkas and many others but Ekaterin said, with one of her wry smiles, that she didn’t think _they_ saw it like that and that perhaps Ivan wasn’t ready then and part of him knew that. But there was no point mourning what might have been and Ivan was never the type to do so, he was always good at drawing a line under things and moving on. The children made things easier but that wasn’t smooth going either.

When he had first started to take care of the children - babies as they were then - Ekaterin was given many warnings, usually in front of Ivan, about Ivan’s competencies. Ekaterin paid no attention to these dire predictions; Ivan tried to do the same.

Ivan found the children endlessly fascinating - not that he told anyone that. He didn’t want anyone to think he was strange or anything, he was getting enough comments as it was. He was used to being ribbed by everyone but what dawned on him, over a Vorkosigan dinner with the Vorbrettens and Vorrutyers, was that it wasn’t just the usual ribbing from his family and friends - these were genuine doubts; they were waiting for him to screw up.

The lecture he received from the Count his uncle, concerning his grandchildren’s welfare, had been most blistering and telling. It may have started off light-hearted but the Count’s words didn’t finish that way and Ivan couldn’t push this one to the back of his mind. Ekaterin's faith in him, that he wasn’t going to break the babies to pieces, now wasn’t enough. Ivan had doubts now and he was also tired; tired of being the butt of endless jokes - about everything - from his disastrous wife hunt to all the ways he might screw up. He was tired of everyone thinking they knew him.

Ivan’s answer to all this was predictable - avoidance. He gradually stopped going to the House and to any of the dinners, except the weekly ones with his mother, of course.

Ekaterin found her own unique solution. She called him one weekend, made sure he was alone and left the children with him, telling him she would be back the next day. She left him with instructions and an open mouth.

Ivan’s pride forbade him from taking them back to Vorkosigan House. And he suspected that Ekaterin knew that, sometimes she knew him a lot better than he liked.

But there was no disaster, nothing much happened, apart from the usual baby routines and Helen keeping him up all night with her crying. Not that Ivan could sleep when the babies slept, he kept checking they were breathing – the monitors said yes but the babies were so _still_.

After that day, Ivan took his lead from Ekaterin’s trust.

Eventually, even Miles begrudgingly admitted he wasn’t that bad an uncle, adding that Ivan was perhaps even better than Mark; a comment Ivan had no difficulty ignoring. Mark and Kareen rarely came home and although Mark sent short messages and lavish gifts to his brother’s children; the children didn’t know him like they knew their Uncle Ivan.

Ivan had always had a suspicion though, that Ekaterin had an ulterior motive for her persistent efforts to have him involved with the children, but she said it wasn’t ulterior, it was obvious. Ivan wasn’t just family, he was part of the backup, backup the children would be happy to go to if Miles and Ekaterin were no longer around…

Ivan wondered if his clone cousin was part of the backup too. He supposed he must be, but Ivan never asked.

But years later, he had asked Ekaterin something that had bothered him: “How did you know, that I would be right for them?”

“Because I know you,” was her straightforward answer. “Also your fear and fascination when you first held them was most telling. I do admit though, that it helps you’re still unattached - at present.”

“Thanks,” he had responded sourly. “Wait. So what happens when I’m _not_ unattached?”

“That would be up to you, I’m not a fortune teller.”

“I would do anything for those kids, Ekaterin, married or not,” he had said, defensively. “You know that - _anything_.”

“Yes, Ivan,” she had said, giving him that unsettling enigmatic smile. “I believe you would…”

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks as always to the beta readers especially to Avantika and Catherine M
> 
> This is a stand alone piece but it is background to my Once Upon a Time fic which is up here but only two chapters, at present...I will finish it, soon - I will, I will, I will...)


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